The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday announced that noted film and TV serial actor Arun Govil will contest from Meerut (Uttar Pradesh) in forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. The party is also fielding actress Kangana Ranaut from Mandi constituency in Himachal Pradesh and industrialist Naveen Jindal from Kurukshetra in Haryana.

All three are part of 111 candidates declared in the fifth list of BJP. However, one of the prominent face of the 17th Lok Sabha, Varun Gandhi (Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh) has been dropped and former Congress leader and former Union Minister Jitin Prasad has replaced him. Union Minister VK Singh has also been replaced by Atul Garg from Ghaziabad constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Another prominent name dropped from the list is SS Ahluwalia from Darjeeling where Raju Bista has been given ticket. However, Varun’s mother, Maneka Gandhi has got the ticket again from Sultanpur (Uttar Pradesh).

Among other prominent names, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will be contesting from Sambalpur in Odisha, while BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra will again try his luck from Puri. Pradhan’s colleagues in the Cabinet RK Singh will contest from Arrah (Bihar) and Giriraj Singh from Begusarai (Bihar). Former Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ram Kripal Yadav and Rajiv Pratap Rudy have retained their candidature from Patna Sahib, Patliputra and Saran in Bihar respectively. However, Union Minister Ashwini Chaube has been replaced by Mithilesh Tiwary in Bihar’s Buxur constituency.

Jagdish Shettar will contest from Belgaum while K Sudharkar has been given ticket from Chikkballapur in Karnataka. In Kerala, K Surendra will fight from Wayanad and KS Radhakrishnan has been fielded from Ernakulam

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